Ray's Runners

or how I navigated Aztlan without Spanish

The team has finished raiding blight and are preparing to plan on how to travel to the Library, and how to raid it. The team heads to the safe house for a hot meal and a good nights rest.

Wednesday 03September 2076 – 09:00

Covon heads to the local stuffer shack for 20 doses of Psyche, Ange also picks up some Psyche. He then calls a smuggler, Rheingold, to see if he can smuggle them into San Antonio. He can get the whole team in, but it will take about 3 days. One day to stay at the end of Salish-Shide, one day to stay at the edge of Pueblo Council, then straight into San Antonio. Covon asks for some land craft to be awaiting them, which Rheingold is more than happy to arrange as well. The total cost will be 10,000¥ to smuggle the team into San Antonio. Covon attempts to negotiate, but fails miserably so the price is now 12,500¥ for smuggling the team + gear to San Antonio along with a vehicle awaiting upon arrival. Rheingold can pick up the team around 16:00 local time.

Covon attempts to get ahold of Sequoia to get some information on the library in San Antonio. She is able reach out to contacts she knows to find the team an introduction to a contact in the area.

Wednesday 03September 2076 – 11:00

Thundor calls his contact in the bar, but he doesn’t know of anything. He then calls his detective contact. The beat cop has heard of the location, but only in rumors.

Sequoia calls Covon back and gives Covon the contact details for Geto, whom will be awaiting for contact from the team when they arrive in San Antonio.

During the next two hours of down time the team contacts Cuillain to buy Thundor some SWAT armor and a ballistic mask customized like the rest of the teams gear.

Wednesday 03September 2076 – 16:00

The team heads out to meet Rheingold to get smuggled into Aztlan.

Thursday 04September 2076 – 23:00

The team made it to the first landing site for the evening near the border of Salish-shide and Pueblo Corporate Council.

Friday 05September 2076 – 23:00

The team lands at the second landing site near the border of Pueblo Corporate Council and Aztlan without incident.

Saturday 06September 2076 – 04:30

The team encounters an aztlan border patrol consisting of 5 troops in a combat helicopter. The team takes out the team, with no small amount of difficulties. Once they take out the patrol, Covon pulls the unconscious team into the craft and take off to hit San Antonio. Six hours later the team is back to fighting shape and land in town.

Saturday 06September 2076 – 11:00

Rheingold lands the craft in an abandoned warehouse district right outside of town, following the coordinates given to the team by Rheingold’s contact for meeting up with the ground vehicle. The team arrives to see a GMC Universe (Rigger 5.0 p. 59).

Covon calls Geto and asks for a safe house. The team is giving coordinates on the other side of town. The team heads to the safe house, a three bedroom apartment on the third floor of a tenement building. The team is given the safe house for a week, after that they will need to negotiate directly with the guy.

Ange decides to astrally assense the room to make sure it is clean, which it is. Then the team, from an audible perception test, realize that everyone is speaking Aztlaner Spanish. Luckily Ange can speak Spanish at a 2, so she can barely understand and communicate. The rest of the team does not. The team decides to learn Aztlanter Spanish together.

Sunday 07September 2076 – 09:00

Ange wakes up to cast some spells on herself. After preparing the team went out to the 2 block area where the Library is supposed to be located. The team notices the area is an old residential area that is now falling into disrepair. It is a lawless area where most people are barely surviving and tolerate existence by partaking of some vices, with people and gangs doing clearly illegal things in the street.

Ange decides to assense the area and notices that one building is heavily marked by a barrier surrounding it. She points out the building to the team who then decides to perceive in detail. This is a one story building with no obvious guards outside. Most people whom look like normal civilians of the area will noticeably avoid the building.

Ange asks around for some rumors of the area and find that a gang or group of people that inhabit the building are no joke. They have no qualms with beheading someone and leaving them in the streets. People don’t want to be caught even talking about the place, or looking in that direction.

Sunday 07September 2076 – 12:00

The team continued to wait and watch the location until after lunchtime. No one comes or goes in the location. Ange continues to ask around about the location, no one wants to discuss anything about the building or group in the building. Ange is able to tell the barrier was created by Geomancy, but nothing else.

The team decides to buy a breaching charge and wireless detonator from a local, as the area is full of lawlessness, a commercial explosive breaching charge.

Yet another seek and find mission, yay

The team reads the file and asks Kayless to negotiate with Jonathan Packard, the information broker, to collect Hasdatean’s contact info. The team pays 500¥ for the info.

The team does some legwork on Hasdatean, finding out that he is a white hat, a person that follows his or her own social agenda. Posting information to show negative light on horrible corporate actions, suspicious political assassinations, etc. From the research the team notices what at first appears to be a corrupted stream, but also shows repeating patterns. Kayless was able to run some algorithms similar to electronics warfare algorithms which show a commlink code, one different from which they purchased.

Kayless sends a message to the boards thanking Hasdatean for the information and that the team would like to intervene, if possible. Almost instantly a reponse comes to Kayless with the message of “meet here” and a location which is a matrix club.

The team link up their devices via the P-Tac and trodes to log into the matrix club where they were told to meet. The team heads into a back room as directed by arrows that appear and meet a tall, slender, well dressed elf. The team introduces themselves after Hasdatean introduces himself. After explaining how the team came about his contact info, Kayless realizes the specifics of etiquette in this type of encounter and is able to persuade Hasdatean that the team is here for actionable information, but may for another reason, and that they are able to contact him via both channels.

After explaining the GLF and how Petru’s cell has been escalating violence, Hasdatean tells the team of Petru’s last known location and that since their aims are aligned, he can send them something to help. The team doesn’t seem to be very technically savvy. Hasdatean then winks out of the matrix.

The team logs out to discuss the newest revelations when sensors on the HQ warn of an impending drone. The team prepares for an attack, when an incoming message asking for landing is received. Kayless directs the drone to land and receives a dongle. Plugging it into a burner comm they see a message from Hasdatean, “hope this is of aid, it will help pull any information from devices pertaining to GLF and Petru”.

The team decide to head to the last known location of Petru’s cell, an abandoned building in the pullyup barrens.

Upon arrival the team does some quick scout work – kayless uses flyspys to look for people and signals, while ange astrally perceives the area. They do not see any signals or people, except for a couple of homeless people around the area. Nothing magical is in the area.

Covon and Thundor decides to sneak around the area, trying to track whom was in the area, what they were doing, and where they were going. The two find that some people were leaving, a few going back, and some carrying heavier loads. Some of the people milled about in strange areas which led the team to find a flash-pak setup as a trap. Kayless is able to disarm the trap, but not able to save the flash-pak.

The team decides to slice the pie to help assist Thundor in searching for more traps while Kayless is searching for any wireless trigger signals. There are three more traps found: one flash-pak near the end of the hallway the stairs, one high explosive on the landing of the stairs, and one high explosive under the stairs meant to explode at the same time, dropping the stairs and anyone on the stairs.

Kayless is able to disarm the flash-pak at the hallway easily. He then decides to take a hit of Psyche to help him concentrate as he disarms the high explosives. Ange decides to take a hit of Psyche as well and increase her strength, agility, and reflexes. Ange summons a spirit to guard Kayless and the team against any glitches. Kayless spends the next 20 minutes disarming both high explosive traps.

The team searches the top floor finding one room still intact which contains the tag for a wireless receiver. Ange astrally projects into the room and sees a strange device on top of a table on one wall, with papers strewn about and a computer terminal. Kayless jumps into one of his kenmushi crawlers to go under the door and look at the device. It is an ANFO explosive with an optical trigger toward the door and a wireless trigger.

The team backs up while Kayless cuts a hole into the room away from the optical trigger. Upon entering the room he sets up an area jammer on his drone to look at the bomb. He realizes the device has the triggers in a metal shell, which takes some hardware work then disarm the bomb. After thinking, plotting, planning, the team changes directions to not disarm the bomb; Kayless uses a flyspy with a directional jammer on the bomb only and then uses the dongle on the terminal while his other flyspy scan the room taking video of the paperwork. Upon leaving the bomb detonates, incinerating the drone.

The team head back to the HQ to analyze the intelligence they have just recovered. Ange tries to decipher the paperwork, realizing it is arcane in nature. She cannot decipher most of the writing, it is written in an encrypted form that doesn’t make much sense. She can tell that the terrorist cell was trying to create or use a magical ritual. The texts also contain references to Alchera, which she describes to the team.

Covon plugs in the dongle and receives a comm code that is a location in the matrix. The team enters the matrix to find an area decorated like a kindergarten play field. Blocks, toys, and a chalk board. An anime styles rabbit icon seeming to be made of data arrives and starts showing data on the chalkboard. The team is given a little history of Petru, showing himself as an icon of justice and how his cell has escalated their violence. Ange realizes that Petru is showing himself as the manifestation of Tyr, the Viking god of justice. The icon also shows the team a globe showing dots linked by dotted lines, indicating locations where the cell has been. It ends with a location after where this intelligence was found, a place at the Seattle pier. Kayless finds a satellite image exactly 4 days prior, the time frame where Covon and Thundor estimate when the cell left. It shows people with moving trucks, in an area about the size of a block.

Monday 07September 2076 – Early Evening

Covon does some matrix searches on the GLF, finding that they are an eco-terrorism organization. The team then decides to head to the site for some surveillance. Upon arrival the team go to a soycafe for a meal as the flyspys survey the area. The block is made up of buildings in a 2×3 formation. The far one at the back, near the shore, has two guards outside with people coming and going, not carrying anything. This is very suspect and causes Kayless to coldsim a flyspy into the building. It is a series of rooms, with two guards outside, four guards inside, and two workers at terminals. The couriers come into pass and collect information, then leave. Kayless parks his flyspy and uses EW to siphon up the signals. He passes the encrypted data to the team, Covon then puts it on a commlink and plugs in the dongle.

The team get a weird signal of a rabbit walking around the comm to eat a carrot at which time Kayless receives a note showing locations. His knowledge of Seattle aids Kayless in identifying the sites as either former terrorist locations or drug safe houses, except for one. This last site is in San Antonio, just across the border in Aztlan.

The team begin discussions on planning to raid the drug safe houses and help make the sprawl a better place…

Abduction, theft, and smuggling, oh my

Covon and Ange begin questioning Professor Olympia while wearing ballistic masks to hide their identities. Ange casts influence on Olympia with the suggestion that Olympia should be cooperative with her kidnappers questions, she was taken due to the team needing information. Covon sits back in his swat armor and ballistic mask as Ange begins the interrogation.

The teams asks her if she has seen the ring, where it is currently located, and it’s physical description. She has analyzed it, cleaned it, and authenticated it; she was taken to a shed/warehouse/tool storage location at a large house near the bay; The ring is in the shape of a big snake eating it’s own tail, the ring is made of stone, and extremely large. It could fit around Covon’s waist, it is also thick. Covon asks if her sight was hindered in someway during traveling to the ring; she was picked up in a vehicle and the driver blackened all the windows so she couldn’t see where to go. Covon also asks if she was hired by Randolph, which she was. He then decides to ask if it poses any danger, which it does not. He was wondering about the ring’s properties; the ring does appear on the astral plane, but it is fuzzy and doesn’t show detail. The ring didn’t respond to any known tests to understand it’s powers, but it also did not react to any sort of magic either – fire or acid couldn’t touch it, even magic. Olympia kept her notes of the ring for another dissertation, which Covon accessed on her commlink after removing his ballistic mask.

Covon asks Chang to access the commlink and see if she has looked for any of the other artifacts. She has looked at many artifacts, but has not seen the four coins of luck or the seal of green gloves. She has seen many different version of the key of power over the years, but they all turned out to paper lotus, not the real artifact. No one knows what the key of power looks like, but her colleague sounds as if she has seen the actual artifact. Her colleague known as Amanda Stroh.

After this questioning, Covon releases Olympia’s manacles and gave her a venti double chocolate frappachino, then releases her at the soybucks.

The team heads off to the rented safehouse.

Thursday early afternoon 03September2076

Covon spends some tally points to get karma (8 tally for 5 karma). He then spends the following day with Chang learning the basics of computer skill.

Friday early afternoon 04September2076

The afternoon after learning computer Covon does a computer search to see if he can find plans for the house of Rudolph T. Donovan, III. With 5 hits Covon is able to find some aerial plans of the compound along with electrical diagrams showing alarm systems, back up generators, and recent satellite images.

Covon then decides to continue the search from some lucky find random financial statements of Rudolph. The satellite images show three Evo Aquavita boats at the pier, one is owned and two are rented. The financial statements has some inconsistencies which do not match the Aquavita, a little deeper look shows that Rudolph has also recently purchased the 85,000,000¥ Lurssen Mobius.

Kayless is able to show that the Mobius could be moored out near the house pier in Bainbridge Island, but it couldn’t go all the way around Bainbridge due to the size and narrowness of the canals. Rudolph will probably be ferrying people to the Mobius on the Aquavitas.

Covon calls OJ to see if he has connections, Johnny Bluestone perhaps?!?; OJ doesn’t have an invite to the soiree as he thinks Rudolph is a poser. He gives Covon the number of Johnny Bluestone. Covon calls Johnny Bluestone to see if he can get an invite – five personalized invites for the team. He knows a guy, a forger, that can make invites at 1,000¥ per invite. He will call Covon in the morning after Covon pays him 7,000¥

Covon does a quick matrix search to show the layout of the Mobius ship, which is an easy find. After the search Ange astrally projects to the boat and finds it is in the normal configuration with only a few options added such as a diving deck and extra hot tub, but it is not setup for the artifact or the party at this time. She remembers the ring was in a “warehouse or toolshed” when Olympia was authenticating it. Ange searches an outlying building and notices something on the astral plane that is magical and couldn’t see any security within the building, just camera on the outer buildings as would be expected on a high value property.

The team makes the decision to infiltrate the property tomorrow evening, Saturday.

Friday late afternoon 04September2076

Covon heads to the local marina and purchases himself a Proteus Lamprey and some diving gear.

Saturday 05September2076

Covon studies piloting watercraft for the full day of Friday.

Sunday 06September 2076

The team decides to do a water infiltration with Covon’s new toy, the Proteus Lamprey, early morning on Sunday at 02:00. After stuffing all their needed gear into dry bags, they don their diving gear.

Covon navigates the Lamprey into the bay and leave the Laprey in the ocean offshore to hover in place about 10m from shore and 10m down (the coast line is very deep, approx. 30m in total depth).

Both Covon and Ange are able to use their diving skill (in Ange’s case trying to imitate Covon’s maneuvers) to get to shore. On shore Ange has her spirit of Water to use concealment power on both of them. After being concealed they both change out of diving gear and into their assault gear.

Covon and Ange sneak to the front of the toolshed, Ange attempts to meld the lock on the door with toxic wave, but was unable. Covon cuts the lock with a miniwelder; the team sneaks into the room finding a table in the middle covered in a blanket. Removing the blanket they find the ring locked down to the table with mechanical ties. After cutting the tie downs a couple of orks appear.

Ange is able to tell that they are speaking in Or’zet and say they noticed the sheet moved so something should be in the toolshed. The team stays silent and unmoving watching as two more orks and then followed by another two orks. One of them stares at Covon, whom becomes unnerved and moves. The one ork continues to stare at Covon and then tries to cast a bold of acid on Covon!

Covon and Ange are able to kill all of the orks, although not without some difficulties. The magical ork hit both of the team members with a very powerful ball lightning spell which injured each, while also causing the team to focus on him until slain. After combat Ange assesses the magical ork and finds 4 preparations (which later expired) and a foci. Taking the predator V pistols, ammo, and commlinks, the team uses an earth spirit to help take the ring of oroboros to the diving gear and onto the Proteus Lamprey. A short dive home, Kayless is awaiting the team’s arrival with the Roadmaster.

Covon calls Chang to offer to let him examine the Ring for a full day to collect the 3,000¥. He gives the team a location of a research lab in Seattle that has a loading dock to drop it off tonight. The team drops off the ring at Chang’s lab then Covon calls Simon and gives him a full dossier on the ring.

Monday 07September 2076

The team pick up the ring from the research lab and drop it off at locations specified by Laurent. He thanks the team for such a good mission, the streets are silent on the job itself with only rumors floating around that the team is still deeply involved in the great artifact rush. At the end of the day the team has netted a cool 16,000¥ each and a small file with information gathered by the information broker on the next item – the Key of Power.

how I stopped worrying and learn to love the face who can negotiate

Covon takes the captured Rusty Nail Ork out to the roadmaster and stays guard to watch him. Kayless scans the crowd looking for anything odd, realizing that these are working stiffs, the rugged type that drink their paycheck away each week; he is the one sticking out as he is overdressed.

Covon and FNG are able to get Bertrand the Rusty Nails Ork to agree to be a contact for a favor they may need. Covon gives him a burner commlink, one of the metalink commlinks the team keeps in the roadmaster and the team headquarters, to use for this contact.

Kayless decides to stop in a drive through to give the guy a bottle of cheap liquor while Covon provides 1,000¥ to the Ork. The mages in the group (Ruthless, Ange, and FNG) all began assensing the Ork.

The team grabs a good meal and sleeps until 11:00 (they arrived at 03:00)

Sunday morning 30August2076

The team decides to perform some legwork on the location of soiree. Kayless realizes that the location of the house is in an extremely wealthy location, a gated community where the nouveau riche live, a community that value security + privacy. The area has contracts with both Lone Star and KE for response teams; if an event would occur both Lone Star and KE would arrive on the scene. Luckily for the team each corp would use their own response, not coordinating with the others, unfortunately they each use HTR teams.

FNG and Ange know that both KE and Lone Star will respond with HTR teams with a response time in minutes.

The team decides to look for a helicopter for ingress/egress. Kayless is able to locate many chop shops in the area, one of which specializes in aircraft. The team rolls into the chop shop, with Kayless leading the negotiation. He flounders by trying to impose his force of will on the fixer whom owns the chop shop, to sell him a specific helicopter. The fixer does have one in the shop, but it was checked in under the name “Smith” not “Magnus Magnusson”.

Ange steps in to try to see if the fixer is able to procure a vehicle for the team. The price of the vehicle will make it six weeks; negotiation between Ange (defaulting) and the fixer has the new deal to be two weeks when the shop can try to get a vehicle in the 6 week delivery time.

The team heads outside for Ange to use a spirit of earth to conceal the team. Covon and FNG are going to sneak around the facility to find the helicopter. They find the helicopter in an outside attached lot under an awning to protect the craft and other crafts. Covon and FNG search for security around the area. Cameras have the whole area, with a fence that is locked using chain and a lock. The aircraft has the blades folded up, under the awning, and sitting on a wheeled platform to be moved by tugs.

The team decides to steal the craft now, at 13:00 on Sunday when the chop is fully staffed. Ange is going to summon a spirit of air with one service. She asks the spirit to conceal Kayless while Ruthless levitates Kayless over the fence into the storage area.

Kayless releases his flyspys, each with the area jammer and directional jammer into the storage area. Kayless enters the craft and connects as a rigger to find that the craft is in perfect working order, except it is missing a vehicle ID. This is a stolen craft…

The team pulls off the awning and rolls the craft out from under the roofed area to the landing area in a stealthy manner. After locking the blades in place, kayless starts up the rotors in a stealthy manner, opening the doors to let FNG and Covon into the craft, while directing the Fly Spys to return to the Roadmaster 10 minutes after taking off. Ruthless and Ange ride in the Roadmaster back to the hippy camp, chasing after the stolen helicopter.

Upon arrival at the hippy camp Kayless paints the vehicle and works up a list of mods to do to the vehicle.

Two days for delivery on the weapon mount; one day delivery on the other items with a total of 21,500¥. Kayless pays 23,000¥ to Rorshach.

Covon decides to call Sweetwater to find a vehicle facility, one that can be had for cheap (trying recoup their losses), that still has all the equipment available. Sweetwater was able to find a facility for 30,000¥; covon pays 40,000¥ to her for the vehicle facility. He labels it “Covon’s Cave” and sends the GPS coordinates to Kayless to come see his “ninja-man cave” or “elf-cave” that he just purchased.

The rest of the team sleeps and rests for the next two days. Covon learns free fall. FNG increases his free fall to 2. The micro rack took 5 hours to install on day 1; the medium rack took 7 hours. Day 2 kayless works on installing the weapon mount, giving up after 7 hours of trying. He did another 6 hours and gives up again. At the end, Kayless payed 3,600¥ for a professional to come install the weapon mount. Ruthless summoned and bound a spirit of man and spirit of fire. Ange just rests for the three days.

Thursday morning 03September2076

The team decides to check on the container vessel, during the matrix search Kayless was lucky enough to come across some news articles about container ships being hit by pirates in the area early this week. Pirates are using this as a living, the vessels will cut their losses of a few containers, unwilling to risk the ship and just pull on insurance for replacement value, while the pirates use this as a form of living (somali pirates?!?). This vessel is specifically listed as being hit by pirates.

Ruthless and Ange astrally project onto the ship and found that two of the five containers are no longer containing magical items. Two are stacked full of reagents with one having a small amount of foci.

Covon looks on the matrix to verify the soiree is still on. Even with all the pirates operating, the soirée is unaffected. He then decides to call Victor Runningmountain to see if he has any information on these containers being smuggled somewhere. Covon pays him 500¥ for the knowledge that a few groups are working in the area; one team is newer and headed up by a former Naval Commander (former Lt. Cmdr. Titus West) because this is a highly coordinated and targeted attack.

Covon called Jane Foster to get info on the appraiser, Olympia. He finds she is well respected in her field and sometimes teaches at a local MIT&T branch. Ange checks to find that she is teaching a course for Autumn semester – archeological techniques in unearthing artifacts.

Ange and Ruthless head to the local MIT&T branch. After class Ange begins small talk with Olympia and attempts to plant a crawler into her briefcase. Olympia notices the crawler, becomes suspicious and calls campus security. Both Ange and Ruthless head out into the quad.

Covon and FNG find the facility parking lot to the north-west and decide to ambush the professor. Kayless drives up the block near the lot with magecuffs at the ready. As soon as she appears Covon and FNG shock Olympia to unconsciousness, put her in the Roadmaster, then pick up Ange and Ruthless. Covon heals Olympia to consciousness.

The Great Artifact Rush, artifact 1

The team was previously offered a job by Laurent from the Atlantean Foundation, they are to find and recover four artifacts. The pay is a meager 9,000 per person per artifact; Kayless is able to smoothly negotiate 12,000 per person per artifact and if all four are delivered successfully then each person on the team will be given a chip by Laurent.

The team decided to see what the other power player in The Great Artifact Rush, Draco Foundation, would be wiling to pay. Covon negotiates with Moreau a price of 10,000 per person per artifact to be delivered, with a condition that Moreau is NOT buying the coins of lucky. He is merely paying courier service of finding, collecting, and returning them.

The team hears rumors that Simon Andrews is interested in the artifacts and upon contacting him they are informed that he is willing to pay 1,000 per person for all information surrounding the artifact – who had it, where was it, how the players are able to acquire it, and anything useful they know about it.

Playing the other side yet again, the players hear that Lin Yao Chang is interested as well. He is willing to pay 3,000 per player if he can examine each artifact for one day.

With that the team is given the contact details of an information broker whom may be able to assist – Jonathan Packard.

Now the legwork begins -

First up is the Ring of Oroboros, which the team is given a heavily redacted file a decker sold to the information broker, this part is free. The first hit is always free…

The team begins draining the information broker of anything he knows about the ring: Where was it last known location? (The Grand Bazaar in Turkey where it was sold in a black market auction); Who sold the ring? (a gang known as “the 40 thieves” whom are known for their secrecy in both seller and buyer); Where is it going? (a Seattle warehouse for cleaning, authentication, and inspection); Where will it go from the warehouse? (it will be shipped via guarded convoy to another location, which has eluded the information broker); Who is appraising the ring? (A woman named Olympia Pichette); and Who bought the ring? (an unknown technocrat).

Kayless has heard some rumors about the warehouses in this area. Right next to the shipping wharf is a huge complex of warehouses, temporary storage warehouses. Companies can rent the warehouses for days, weeks, or months as needed for temporary holding space as goods are shipped into and out of Seattle.

Ange hit the streets to find out more information about the artifact expert Olympia Pichette, Kayless helps with some of his street contacts in digging up rumors. The team is able to find Olympia’s P2.1 that shows her CV (MIT&T alum with a bachelors degree in magical history and PhD in artifact magic). They also hear she runs a consultancy business where they clean, repair, identify, and authenticate magical items and artifacts.

Covon tries Jane Foster to help do some research, but is unable to reach her.

Ange and Kayless again hit the streets together to see if there are any rumors about the technocrat whom bought the ring. They hear it was a nouveau riche technocrat who made his money with some lucky investments by the name of Rudolph T. Donovan, III.

Kayless sits down to study the logistics of smuggling such an item from The Grand Bazaar into Seattle by way of sea port. He realizes that it would be done by placing it in a shipping container, one of thousands on the same ship (security by obscurity). At this point Kayless realizes he needs some matrix support to continue finding useful information. He calls his children whom successfully negotiate 50 per question and a bag of candy.
1) They are able to find satellite images which show a container ship that left Turkey at the same time and has a very circuitous route which will land in Seattle in 1-2 weeks, depending upon weather conditions, before continuing on to South America.
2) What artifacts does Rudolph T. Donovan, III have besides the ring? None
3) What business dealings does he have in The Grand Bazaar? None, all transactions are done through secure middlemen, just like shadowrunning
4) Does he own a shipping company? No
5) Is anything being transported in his name? no
6) Other business associates he has? Far too many to list, he is a former low level executive of an AA corp
7) Any notes on the shipping container? It is a red one, no specific details given as it is on the ships manifest
8) What ship is it being transported on? The HWCS Yucatan

Ang decided to see what rumors show about the security of Heavy Weight Container Ships. She finds that it has a few riggers that take shifts navigating the ship and a skeleton crew to keep the automated systems running. The ship loads and unloads itself, with little input from a rigger. The ships usually have heavy ECM to protect the rigger and robotic systems along with fire suppression systems that can be used offensively to deter pirates attempting to board the ship.

While Kayless finishes paying his child for information he is offhandedly informed that there is a soiree being held by Rudolph, which is how they were able to locate information on him. The invite is shared with the team, specifying the party will be at his newly purchased house, complete with boat dock and accompanying yacht, the week following the arrival of the artifact.

Ang decides to astrally project herself and travel to the ship to assense it. The ship is able to be located via satellite imagery; ang doesn’t find anything magical outside of the ship. She decided to use 5 of her spirits to help her search each of the 2,000 containers and the hull of the ship. The find that 5 containers contain magic of some type; three are completely full while two have smaller amounts. Neither Ang nor the spirits have seen the ring to know what it truly looks like and cannot locate it quite that easily. They are able to locate which containers out of the 2,000 so the team is able to watch for it as it is unloaded.

At this point the team realizes they need a safe house to work out of as they do traditional footwork, putting the synth-leather to the pavement so to speak. Kayless and {Brian} work together on finding a safe house that meets the teams needs – a 2 bedroom furnished apartment on the 10th floor of a 12 floor building that rents to executives on short term leases for business meetings. The flat has a clear view of the port as they needed. All of this for the low price of 300 a day; the team rents the flat until the Saturday after the party, a total of 14 days for 4200 out of the team fund.

The team heads out to survey the warehouse on foot. A long building with no windows, with doors on each of the short sides and an angled cheap metal roof make this building look like it was put up quickly and cheaply. Basic security with maglocks on doors that stay open most of the time, reminding the team of a hanger, except a small side door near one end that goes into an office room.

It is owned by a company known as Empire Rentals, with a huge AR sign emblazoned on the sides showing an attractive elf woman and rugged ork male speaking about the security, cleanliness, and ease of renting a warehouse from Empire Rentals. Other than the ad, no one notices any untoward activity; all the drones and workers mill about as to be expected in a warehouse/shipping setting. There are a few people that stand out as unsavory types, mafia men who take a cut of some dealings. Nothing unusual for an area populated by longshoreman and teamsters.

Kayless searches some of the dark matrix and finds that underground rigger games are held regularly in this area, each Saturday night late to early Sunday morning games are held in a different warehouse as area is available.

After a full day of legwork the team decides to call this Friday evening to an end, grabbing some chow and a nights sleep.

Ang decides to do some assensing in the area, {Brian} also joins in. The building has some geomancy wards on it, which Ang quickly realizes is to help keep the structure intact not a defensive ward. As they are assensing Kayless releases his flyspys to swarm around the area and look for any ECM, but nothing is found.

Covon and {Brian} head up to the roof of the safe house to assess the warehouse line of sight and sighting trajectory where they notice that they cannot get a clear sight picture to any door, only the long side and the roof.

The team heads back to the warehouse Saturday night late to attend the rigger games. Kayless dresses to impress rather than participate in the game and places a be (200 on 1:10 odds). He notices some commotion in the corner after placing his bet and releases his flyspys to record the happenings.

Covon and Ang decide they need to see how this FNG can handle himself. They take {Brian} over to where a group of 8 gangers are hanging out. A quick scan reveals these are members of the Rusty Nails, a gang that the team has encountered previously, whom gave up quickly without a shot fired. Not this time – Covon and {Brian} both continue to antagonize until the Nail draw their stun batons.

A few second later and most of the Nails are dead, with a couple knocked unconscious. Covon handles one as he usually does – restrains and disarms him, then heals him to garner information. Unfortunately the team was a little rough and it takes a few hours before the Ork comes to his senses.

Plan and (hopefully) execute

Covon and Ange are joined once again by Ruthless, Lycus the adept, and Jian-Min the technomancer on Thursday, 23rd July 2076. The team does some more legwork on Dr. Amanda Stroh and the lab where she works. They find nothing new on the target besides she has a corp sin and no criminal sin, but did find the lab performs unspecified research. The team also tries to investigate why Amanda keeps working for the corps when she is extracted back and forth – none of their contacts come up with anything specific, only that she was born to corp parents and has always been in the corp-drone life. The team then decides to do a stakeout of the lab.

Covon decides to contact a smuggler, Viktor Running Mountain of the Cascade Ork tribe, for some help in smuggling Dr. Stroh out of seattle. Viktor is able to pass along contact info of a fixer in Salish-Shide – Damon Price. Background on Damon shows he is a generalist when it comes to being a fixer, always trying to get as much money as possible with as little danger; he is not the most courageous man. Damon does try to stick with moving people via coyotes as it gives him maximum profit with little personal risk and exposure.

Ange calls Damon for some info. He is able to find a position, but will take two days (Saturday, 25th July) and cost 3,000. After some failed negotiations Damon is willing to find a position matching what the team needs for 4,000.

On Friday Damon calls Ange back with info about a corp within the Salish-Shide that has an opening for a parazoology researcher, someone with arcane knowledge and research ability. Phoenix Biotech is looking for a person that has a valid, unrestricted sin, and a CV capable of passing the HR department review (they must be able to actually perform the job). The company is based in Denver, with a satellite office in Seattle, but the position is in the field in Salish-Shide.

Jian does research on Phoenix Biotech finding that they do research to find ways to create new implants for the biotech and cybertech markets, finding inspiration in parazoology and parabotany.

The following day (Saturday) the team decides to do some physical surveillance of the lab.
The lab is two stories, with the main floor lobby being glass front and along the sides of the building partially. Across the other two sides of the building are other two story corp locations, one of which has a soy café, and a park behind the lab consisting mostly of some trees, a fountain, and benches where the employees have lunch frequently. The lab has an airbridge to cross the street out from for the employees to reach the worksite from a residence hall. The lobby of the lab is guarded by three guards, one behind a desk checking ID and bags, with two more posted in conspicuous locations. None of the guards carry heavy weapons, these are mostly to show a physical presence. The building has cameras in the lobby and also along the roof top. Lycus uses some crazy parkour to scale building and investigate the roof. The roof has one door to the building, secured with a maglock, and no visible air vents for a possible entry point.

Jian does matrix surveillance and find the host is a rating 8 host with patrol IC running constantly and two spiders. It doesn’t seem to have any obvious technomancer backdoors.

Ange and Ruthless begin assensing the site finding that there are two watcher spirits (both summoned from separate mages) and a force 6 air spirit guarding the site.

Ange, Covon, and Lycus all call their fixers to see about getting a fake sin at rating 6 for the doctor. Lycus can get one for 20,000 and it will take a week; Ange is able to also get one in 1 week for 20,000. Covon gets extremely lucky when he calls Jazz from the Ork Underground. Jazz just happens to have one sitting around that matches the doctors CV very closely. It will take only three days (to be delivered on Tuesday 28th July) and will cost only 9,000 to setup.

The team stay at the site until evening watching as the late, dedicated, researchers leave around 20:00. Guards also change out a little after this – a van pulls up to the entrance, two guards exit taking up recon positions as three guards walk from the van to the lobby and replace the three on duty. Then the van pulls away with the two recon guards and three replaced guards.

The team follows the van to a site a few blocks away, another residence style hall that seems to contain only security personnel and a garage full of security vans. The team notices a bowl noodle vendor along the street. They stop to grab some (well, for covon a lot) of food and see if the guy has some info. Nothing really actionable, unfortunately, so the team heads home for some needed rest.

The team shows up the following morning (Saturday, 25th July 2076) to find the lab was attacked just minutes prior! A barricade separates the trid news media from EMTs and other emergency personnel who are helping injured researchers. Firefighters are working to stop some small blazes that are under control. The team asks around and searches the matrix finding clear video showing a vehicle pull up to the front, a team of people hop out and open fire on the lab. They rush in, pulling out someone and taking off with surgical precision.

Covon is able to tell they have some military training or at least some background while Ruthless notices that the obvious leader of the team is none other than Commander Titus even though he is not in uniform! Some quick small unit tactics combined with local area knowledge from Covon and Lycus point that the team would want to lay low for a two or three days in a very defensible yet remote site. This will let any heat die down before they deliver the doctor to wherever they are destined. The team find the perfect location, an abandoned airport just outside seattle proper.

The team heads to the team HQ, grabbing gear suitable for a heavy conflict and drive to about 1km of the airport. Jian sends his flys-spy drone in to look around, giving the team a rough map of the area when it is suddenly destroyed. The team is able to deduce that the shot was suppressed and came from the control tower. Knowing they are dealing with a sniper the team is frozen, just perceiving the site from afar. They notice that a few hanger type buildings have some Orks from an obvious gang (the hooks, a relatively unknown and new ork gang known for their penchant for violence and excessive greed) patrolling and swapping positions from three that guard the fuel depot.

After a very furious and dangerous combat the team is able to kill the sniper in the control tower and one razor guy, with the rest of the runner team escaping on a VTOL craft. Not before (former) Commander Titus telling the team that this will not be the last they see of him.

The team find Dr. Stroh bound in the corner of the maintenance shed. Now that she is “safe” team only needs to get her to her new life. Easy as a milk run.

The end of something and the beginning of another

After subduing the spec-ops team sent to the team’s rented safe house in Australia, a decision is made to head back to Seattle and quickly. The team finds a coyote (Magnus) whom is able to take them the following morning, which turns into a rather uneventful ride. Upon arrival in Seattle the members split off, heading into their own bolt-holes to rest and re-equip. Covon takes the sextant and meets up with a new runner for support – Ange (pronounced ahnj) an elven witch that he has heard of, but never ran with before.

Covon sets up a meet with the Johnson in a local city park, a very antiquated spy-trid-esque hand off, on Tuesday, June 9th, 2076. Covon heads out to buy a new jeep before he and Ange scout the local park to setup defensible positions. Ange will take a sniper position on top of a nearby building while Covon does the exchange. After a good meal and a full nights rest both runners head to the local park at 14:00, a full two hours early.

Mr. Johnson arrives, sitting next to Covon, and nonchalantly picks up the duffel bag holding the sextant. A couple pleasantries later, Covon and Mr. Johnson part ways. This was the easiest meet the team has ever had, a pure milk run!

As the two runners leave they notice a go-gang driving around making a ton of noise. Ugh, Seattle life is not what it used to be. Sounds of gunfire reverberate when the team receives a call from an unidentified number. The caller at the end introduces himself as Moreau, the Mr. Johnson is working for Moreau to handle this run. Moreau is in need of the runners help directly – Mr. Johnson is being attacked at the park, risking the loss of the sextant. The team needs to only cause enough of a disturbance that will delay the gang so the Mr. Johnson can escape. Moreau will pay the runners a cool 7,000¥ for a (hopefully) short and easy afternoon.

The team is able to delay the Ork gang through judicial use of smoke grenades and spirit concealment ability for Mr. Johnson to escape. Moreau calls the team to send the payment and thank the runners, informing them to call him when they are ready for a new job.
The team takes five weeks of downtime to heal, rest, and improve themselves. During this time the team can’t help noticing the newest tag line in the news trids – The Great Artifact Rush. It seems that some new artifacts have been appearing all around the world and corps have been in a rush to snatch them for research and to further their own (P&L driven) agenda. These endeavors has become so heated and to become a blitz, spilling over out of the shadows and into the mainstream consciousness. Any and every situation is being attributed to The Great Artifact Rush; every murder is seen as a possible connection to an illicit meeting to exchange info on an artifact; every fire an arson used to cover a theft attempt; every explosion is envisioned to be criminal elements blowing their way into a building to steal information on artifacts. Not all of this is true, of course.

Good thing everyone can swim

Friday evening is spent relatively uneventfully; Covon is preparing gear and snacking on milcorp spec protein-energy-microbe-enhanced bars; Ruthless is working at the little portable stove to get some cookies made; Kayless, as usual, tinkers away on his drones. All while Da’ Stroker is doing some legwork on the infil and exfil plan setup. The plans unnerve him so much that he decides to bow out, rather than infiltrate a warship using only his deck and his grenade launcher (not the best for such close, tight quarters). Luckily he knows a few chummers hard on their luck and needing a score, both relatively new to the scene – Lycus an infiltrator with that edge which only comes from being magically adept and Elvis a decker of some skill both in the matrix and in meatspace. They are accompanied by the rarely present Horra, who decides to join in the reindeer games.

Saturday morning everyone meets at the safehouse, to reevaluate the plan with the new team capabilities, handle a little more legwork, and ensure there is the level of professional mistrust among new associates. Once business is concluded, they set out for diving and climbing instruction at the beach.

The instruction takes place at a beachside bungalow styled shack, a complete dive shop with recreation vehicles, sporting equipment, and a portable climbing simulation wall. This is clearly a place more suited for vacation activities than high quality instruction, but the proprietor, a jovial dwarf of no small demeanor, makes it known that the team is getting first rate lessons. Climbing in the morning, lunch break, then diving in the evening (to better enjoy the bio-luminescent critters!) the team is in for a full day. As they are climbing out of the water during diving instruction the team is greeted by a large group of sailors, headed up by a stern looking man in charge.

Some tense conversation, and failed negotiation, the team is taken into custody. Boarding the CSS kittyhawk as and thrown in the brig, the team has to plot how to get out, find their gear, acquire the target, and find a new egress plan.

The team is interrogated by the XO, Commander Titus West. Cmdr. West appreciates Covon’s direct and honest approach, realizing that the team is really a covert unit appearing as if they are shadowrunners trying to infiltrate the carrier group. How else would the team have such confidential information? The commander arranges for the team to collect their standard issue gear from the quartermaster.

After getting dressed and geared the team makes a new plan to acquire the sextant. Horra will attempt to seduce the Captain to get into his quarters, from there she will subdue him and steal the sextant. The rest of the team will prepare the ex-filtration – blowing a hole in the side of the ship’s hull, creating a separate diversion, and escaping to swim to shore.
Horra is able to seduce her way into the captains quarters, past the stationed marine outside. She informs the captain of the mutiny in his midst headed up by the XO. The captain orders the XO to be detained, starting a huge commotion aboard the ship, and then successfully subdued the captain with a slap patch. The team meets at the aft launch ramp, finding a couple of Zodiac Scorpio. Launching the craft the team uses a spirit from Ruthless for concealment and the team’s stealth abilities to navigate to shore. Hopping in the van at the training location, the team head back to the safehouse.

Upon arrival at the safehouse not all is as it seems. There is no foot traffic, no random people wandering about their day; searching the matrix the team finds a group setup in ambush. Covon directs some small unit tactics and the team assaults the ambush! After a very lengthy fight, the CAS special force team is subdued, restrained, and healed (as much as can be, those that were not killed). Now the team only need to return the sextant, collect their payday, and head home for some much needed R&R.

Everything in Australia is poisonous

Covon, Kayless, and Ruthless all received a group call in the late afternoon from a strange number. A clearly inexperienced “Mr. Johnson” got their contact info from a friend of a friend who knows a guys… He contacts the team as he is in need of someone experienced in property retrieval, something that needs to be returned to him and his client. Kayless agrees to a meet where they can negotiate terms and learn more of this job, agreeing to meet at a local dive bar Tuesday afternoon at 22:00.
Once the team hangs up the call they realize that they only know to meet a “Mr. Johnson” at a local dive bar at 22:00 tomorrow, but nothing more about who this is – no other description, no photo, no identification to find the person in the bar. Kayless asks around about the dive bar, to see what types of rumors exist, only to find that it is a rather inconspicuous location, a bar where locals go to drink away their paychecks and sorrows.
Arriving at the dive bar an hour early the team realizes this is not the typical meet locale, rather this dive bar has an open mic spoken word night, filled to the brim with beatnik artistic types. Covon scans the crowd and finds the Johnson, sitting in a corner booth waving profusely at the team. No one in the bar even acknowledges the runners, everyone is transfixed on the person on stage at the mic. The Johnson activates a small white noise generator while Kayless commands a flyspy drone to circle above the group with its directional jammer active to give the team more privacy.
Mr. Johnson tells the team that he is willing to pay 50k per person on the team and 10k upfront (for a total of 60k) if the team is able to retrieve an object for him. He needs this object returned in the next few weeks. Kayless attempts to fast talk the Johnson, hoping to compliment him enough that the job will pay more. Some crude negotiation later and the Johnson is willing to pay 75k per team member with a 15k being an advance. The team accepts and gets down to the specifics of the run.
The team needs to retrieve an item known as the Sextant of the Worlds, which has shown up in a recent CAS navy photo. This artifact is in possession of Captain Samuel J. Barret, CASN, and Captain of the newly commissioned CSS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier. The item was given to Capt. Barret by an unknown person whom asked for him to act as a courier, delivering the item during the stop-over in Thailand to a buyer.
The carrier is on deployment as part of the Carrier Strike Group 1 (CSG1) and is sailing along with Carrier Strike Group 2. The ship has just left port in Lima, Peru and will stay over this next weekend in Melbourne, Australia before continuing through the Asia Pacific islands to port again in Thailand. The team must retrieve this item from the captain’s display case in his quarters aboard the CSS Kitty Hawk and return it to Mr. Johnson before the ship arrives in Thailand, where the item will be transferred.
Mr. Johnson passes the team a portfolio of information – schematics and deck plans of the ship; bills of lading; crew manifest; bios of the CO, XO, CMC, and Master at arms; ships schedule. Mr. Johnson is also able to arrange for transportation and rental vehicles for the players if the need arises.
Assaulting a carrier is no joke and not to be taken lightly, whether at sea, via air, or even in port, the team decides to arrange some prep as they travel to Australia. Upon arrival the team needs a scuba instructor, a climbing instructor, two grapple guns with stealth wire and catalyst rods, two Lampreys, four sets of diving gear (one troll sized), and four wet bags. Kayless paid the 7,000 deposit for safe return of both Lampreys and 9,500 for gear/instructors. The team then uses another 5,000 per person from the advance to pay for a coyote to get to Australia with a subsection of gear.
Before leaving town the team decides they need some matrix support on-site; Kayless calls Sweetwater to convince her to join the team. She is bothered by the idea of sneaking onto a military vessel at sea, hacking state of the art, cutting edge matrix equipment onboard the ship, then sneaking away. Last time she got caught and was in a black site for months on end. She is willing to provide matrix support and overwatch, but Kayless is unable to convince her to go with them in person. Covon calls Rorschach whom is able to track down a kiwi combat decker who goes by the name of Da’ Stroker. This new ally is not only up for the mission, he is craving the thrill of such a dangerous op. Da’ Stroker passes the team a VR marker for a bar in Sidney where he will await the team (bar tabs on them!) and also sets up local transportation for the team to go to a safe house.
The team lands in Sydney uneventfully Thursday morning early, hops in the transportation van, and heads to a local safe house. This is a tenement style apartment building full of local gangers of all different colors and flavors. The team unpacks gear in their little 2 bedroom (if you can call it that) flat. Covon then approaches some of the nearest gang leader and asks for some paid security of their flat. After some “rough” Covon style negotiation (read: knocking all five of the gangers unconscious, restraining them, healing them, and then continuing to want to pay the gang for security) a price of 1,500 for a month is agreed on both sides. The Rusty Nails will keep watch over the safe house and alert the team to anything untoward.
The team gets some local flavor info from the Rusty Nails, including a local bar known as Jim’s as a place of potential info. This bar just happens to correspond to the same dive bar Da’ Stroker sent. Heading over to Jim’s, the team meets up with Da’ Stroker, has some drinks, then heads back to the apartment to describe the run in detail.
The team formulates a plan of assault, while still needing to hash out the details such as a path through the carrier, and some more legwork. Sailors from the carrier had a disturbance while on shore leave in Peru (after a fight a bar caught on fire, which then spread to consume the whole block…) forcing the command to limit shore leave to a small section of sailors at a time and for limited time blocks. After this the team decides to break for the evening before starting their diving and climbing lessons in the morning Friday, leading up to a daring infiltration and ex-filtration of a new CAS aircraft carrier on Saturday.

27 Apr 2076
- 1030: The team launchers their assault against the nicely dressed ork bug spirits and after a long battle including grenades, drones, sniper rifles, spells, they overcome the entire group. They recover the heart and make their way out. Luckily Kayless has his Fly Spy drones out and sees a group heading the way they came, so they are able to avoid them. They make their way to a luxury hotel and decide to rest and recuperate.
- 1100: OJ calls Jane Foster and offers to give her the heart for Ehran. She calls back several hours later and agrees to send a representative to retrieve the heart and she offers them the same amount they would have received from Corcoran (50,000¥). OJ also asks for an Ares MP Lancer.
- OJ calls Lotta Blossom and invites her to come to Milan to party for a week.
- Kayless calls Brunhilde to arrange transport back to Seattle. He also invites her to come to Milan to party for a week.
- After they party for the week, they depart for Seattle and arrive in Seattle on 4 May 2076.

24 April 2076 (Friday)
- 0002 Arrive at a small airfield outside Frankfurt.
- OJ summons spirit to find Joann
- Kayless calls Piotr and they are take to Nightclub Paradies at 0145. They book rooms at Villa Kennedy.
- 0200: OJ summons spirit to bind until 0800.
- 0402: Get to rooms and get info.
- 1600: Everyone wakes up.
- 1700: Luigi shows up and takes them to Milan.
- 2330: Arrive in Milan.

- 25 Apr 2076 (Saturday)
- 0000 Get settled into B&B. Kalyess talks with local smuggler sand learns of deaths in Sarajevo.
- 0030: Jian searches for info on group (Joann’s).
- 0100: Jian finds smuggler form Milan to Sarajevo (Dragan).
- 0200: Dragan responds he is able to meet at port in 3 hours for 5000¥.
- 0500: Dragan meets party at port.
- 0530: Jian finds more info about ambush in Sarajevo.
- 0600: Turn around and arrive back in Milan.
- 1400: Synthia Schorders shows up and makes offer which the team refuses. Tells them she is with a different group of the Apep Consortium and that Corcoran is a master shedim who shouldn’t receive the heart.
- 1500: Jian searches for the orgs who ambushed Joann’s group and OJ summons a spirit of air.
OJ summons a spirit and seeks out a chem lab to see if he can get some KE-IV.

26 Apr 2076 (Sunday)
- 0600: OJ meets Jimmy Bob of Doctors Within Borders and give him the samples and they discover at 0900 that it is KE-IV.

27 Apr 2076 (Monday)
- 0930: The team discovers that the insect hive is in the old subways, buys a bunch of gear and make their way into the subway where they discover a strange tunnel with sentries and a couple of guys talking about something.
-

We have a heart

23 Apr 2076 (Thursday)
- 0100: Syndell starts doing legwork on sales of items and discovers there is a sale taking place at Place X, which is a neutral meeting place in the Grand Bazaar. She also looks into 10000 Daggers and finds they are a mercenary unit based out of Istanbul and are also responsible for the security at the bazaar. She checks into the Loose Cannons and finds they are the sellers of the heart. She discovers they have a dead drop in order to contact them. She leaves a message for them to contact her.
- 0900: Neferiez of the Loose Cannons contacts her and they get into an altercation and Syndell ends up hanging up on him.
- 1200 OJ calls Raja and asks him to reserve space in Place X for a soire for 40-50 guests during the same time as the sale.. Kayless also begins looking for two safe houses: one close by and the other a little further out. He also purchases some explosives and detonators as well as some slap patches with Neurostun.

The Plan:
- OJ invites many luminaries to the party and has the strike team from Joanna Krstic acting as security
- Syndell plants fake evidence on the spare commlinks pointing to the Loose Cannons as terrorists who attached the party.
- Kayless gets two bombs ready, one for the “shitty” safe house and one for planting in Place X.
- OJ casts physical mask on Kayless and Covon making them look like member of the loose cannons and they are to enter Place X after the party starts and during the meet.
- 1230: OJ arrives at Place X and ensures it meets his standards. Sundell is in a bag in the back of the Toyota Gopher parked outside the Bazaar so she can monitor matrix traffic.
- 1400: Kayless and Covon show up outside Place X and they discover Yuri and Hiver outside Place X. They decide to attack them and Place X goes into lockdown. Inside, the strike team starts attacking the other Loose Cannons and takes them down along with their customers. OJ is able to retrieve the heart and they make their way to the hotel. The team splits up so they can plant the evidence and such.
Joanna and her team show up at OJs hotel and politely ask for the heart. They get paid for the mission and Joanna departs.
- 1500: OJ gets a call from Raja because a guy by the name of Hamid wants to meet with the team concerning the heart. OJ sets a meet up at the Sultan’s Lappe for 1600.
-1600: The team met with Hamid of the Kurdish resistance and discovered the heart can be used to open a gateway to allow bug spirits to come across. He offered the team 100,000¥ each in order to retrieve it and bring it back to the Kurds.

Off to Istanbul

- 20 April 2076
- The team has spent several weeks to make improvements and receive a call from Jane. She informs them they have a Job offer from an Evan Corcoran in the Federal District of Columbia. All expenses will be paid just to listen to the job. Their flight takes off at 1800 to the FDC.
- 21 April 2076/0400: They land in FDC where a limo picks them up and takes them to one of the nicer hotels in the area. Kayless checks into safe houses in the FDC and thinks the best place to find them would be the Anacostia Barrens.
- 0500: They meet with Corcoran and negotiate for 50,000¥ each, up to a party of 5. Corcoran informs them an artifact lent to the George Washington University for study was stolen. Ehran lent them the artifact (the weird heart they found in Karavan). Corcoran’s agents believe the heart is enroute or already in Istanbul and will be sold there. The team reviews security footage of the heist and believe the group who committed it are The Loose Cannons, the same group they encountered back in Europort.
- 1900: The team boards a private charter aircraft and depart for Istanbul.

- 22 April 2076
- 0520: The team arrives in Istanbul, rent a Toyota Gopher from the local Avis and depart for their hotel, the Sura Hagia Sophia. The Avis employee tells them to contact his cousin Raja if they need anything for their stay.
- 0700: They arrive at their hotel, get settled in and call Raja to see if he can assist in finding one of the Loose Cannons, Yuri, whom they believe would be the one most likely to stand out.
- 0900: They go to the Grand Bazaar and Kayless sets loose his fly spies to see if they can find any of the Loose Cannons via facial recognition. OJ summons a spirit of air and sends it to search for Yuri as well. While they wait for the drones and spirit to do their things, they decide to do a little shopping for information (and stuff). They discover rumors of a sale taking place this coming Saturday at the Grand Bazaar for an item to a group of Kharijites (servants to the great dragon Aden). They also meet Sam (a talismonger) who shows OJ a beautiful, obviously magical, walking cane. OJ assenses it, but cannot determine it’s exact powers, so Sam tells them he will call his cousin (Izzett, son of Kadir) to come look at it for him.
- 1400: Izzett, son of Kadir, arrives at Sam’s shop and they look at the cane. Izzett reveals it has a sordid history and is cursed. Over a century ago, it belonged to a British officer who used it to take out his displeasure on his servants, and all who saw him while he had it, felt he had a presence about him which demanded respect. When he used it during his tirades, he became a vicious person and would not stop unless he exerted a huge amount of self control (or was forced to stop). OJ purchases it and immediately begins the bonding process.
- 1900: OJ also decides to bind his spirit of air and spends the next 6 hour doing so (finished 23 April 2076/0100).

Boom...oops, we forgot something

- 6 Mar 2076
The team is able to move up the stair wells and encounter heavy resistance at the top floor landing. Once they overcome the guards, they find the hallways deserted and make their way into Hiroshi Yakashima’s office. He is there waiting for them and, to their surprise, congratulates them on their efforts. He offers them the chain and OJ lets him know the building is going to be destroyed shortly. Non-plussed, Hiroshi grabs a katana and wakazashi and tells them to take what they wish. He then exits, they take the chain and they make their escape from the facility. Fortunately for them, a pack of dogs attack officers awaiting outside which assists with their own distraction and they make their way back to their safe house. As they depart, they trigger the explosives they’ve planted and down comes the building. On the way to the safe house, OJ suddenly remembers they were supposed to some information out of the host for their Yakuza hosts. They decide to send the children on a run against the Yakashima facility in the bay and the kids come back with pay data.
- 1600: They get back to the safe house and contact Ken about getting out of Neo-Tokyo. He tells them they are to go to the Port Tokyo Harbor and catch a ride on the freighter “Calico Ghost Town” which departs at 2000. The trip will take four days to travel from Neo-Tokyo to Cara’Sir (Portland).
- 7 Mar 2076: The first day goes well and they contact their fixers back in Seattle to order some great.
- 8 Mar 2076: A heavily armed group arrived in a helicopter and attacks the ship. The team is able to take out the attackers and destroy their helicopter in the process.
- 10 Mar 2076: They arrive in Cara’Sir, deliver the chain and travel back to Seattle. Once in Seattle, they take some time to work out, learn some new skills, and do all the fun stuff they need to do to get better.

Sushi chefs are too cool

1 March 2076 (Sunday)
- 0700: The team boards Sergei Viper’s Banshee and make their way to Neo-Tokyo. On the way, the children look into Yakashima and Neo-Tokyo. They discover the CEO they seek collects various artifacts, but he does not appear to be a mage himself. They do discover they’ve recently been working with the Atlantean Foundation on a variety of projects, most of which have to do with gene modifications on their personnel. They discover Yakashima has two different facilities (though there could be more), but their primary target is the one in Neo-Tokyo (not in the bay). They team discovers there are four primary Yakuza groups running things in Neo-Tokyo and decide to approach the Watada-gumi in order to introduce themselves and their intentions.
- Upon arriving in Neo-Tokyo, they discover the news is filled with reports of a rogue band of terrorists who attacked the Yakashima building a day ago. Apparently a well armed terrorist group launched rockets and grenades at the building, then charged in with machine gun fire. NTPD responded within 30 seconds with heavily armed drones and SWAT units and cut them down. All terrorists were killed and investigations were ongoing to identify them.

3 Mar 2076 (Tuesday)
- 1500: The team goes to the Watada House as they heard that is the place to meet the Watada-gumi and they aren’t wrong. OJ ensures they bring an appropriate gift along and are greeted by Ken Muratomi in a private dining room of the Watada House restaurant. OJ successfully navigates through Yakuza etiquette requirements and strikes a deal. The team will be allowed to stay in one of the Watada safe houses and they may conduct their operation against Yakashima, provided they bring Ken data concerning Yakashima’s arrangement with the Atalantean Foundation. While there, OJ asks Kayless to figure out how much they would need to blow up the Yakashima building and asks Ken if he can supply it (for a price of course).
- The team settles into their safe house and gather more legwork on their target so as to determine the best method of entry. They discover the Sushi En will cater lunch this coming Friday at noon, so they decide they are going to hijack the catering truck at the Sushi En parking lot, load it with themselves, and the explosives and bluff their way into the underground parking lot at Yakashima.
- They also have the children probe Yakashima’s computers and discover a person claiming to be Sweetwater in the host. She claims to not know how she got there, but she will help them penetrate the facility, since she knows Kayless will get her out. She tells them she is in the Matrix lab, but believes the item they seek is on the third (top) floor in Yakashima’s office.

6 Mar 2076 (Friday)
- 1115: The team gets dressed in their ballistic masks and SWAT armor and wait for the Sushi chefs to come out to their vehicle. They observe three chefs (one older and two younger) approach the catering truck and OJ confidently and with great intimidation steps in front of them. Using his Japanese language skills, he threatens them…and all three Sushi chefs look upon him and tell him to back off. OJ, taken aback, begins speaking with the eldest and discovers this Sushi chef has no fear of the team and is as hard as stone…the same goes for his two compatriots. OJ then changes tactics and asks if they might be able to get a ride to the Yakashima building. The elderly Sushi chef agrees and tells the team to go ahead and hop in the back with the other two. As they make their way through Neo-Tokyo, one of the younger Sushi chefs makes sushi nigiri for each of the team members to try while the other sharpens his knives. Cosgrey and Covon observe the skill with which each uses their blades and discover these guys are far better with bladed weapons than they are. The elder Sushi chef calls from the front of the vehicle that the team is to not cause any mayhem until after 1300, as that is when the lunch break ends and they receive their tips. Starting anything prior to that will probably result in them losing their tips for the day.
- 1145: The elder Sushi chef guides the truck into the parking garage, makes small talk with the security guard and parks next to the underground entrance. As the team exits the vehicle, they discover they are in an absolute blind spot, the guard and the cameras cannot see them where they parked. The Sushi chef makes an off-hand comment about having done this before. They wish the runners luck and once again remind them to wait until after 1300 and the three Sushi chefs haul in their carts.
- The team begins penetrating the facility and make their way to the Matrix lab where Sweetwater told them they’d find her. On their way to the lab, they find the security cameras are under her control so the team remains undetected. They get into the lab and are not able to find Sweetwater, though she tells them from the main console that she is here. They decide to head down to the detention block to see if she might be there. When they get to the detention block, they encounter two guards and take them out…though not before one of the guards triggers the alarm. Surprisingly, the alarm only remains on for three seconds before it’s silenced. They find Sweetwater in a cell with a VR rig on her head. They safely disconnect her and head on out.
- Kayless goes about setting up the charges to destroy the building and the runners make their way up to the basement level, only to find four guards checking each room. They engage the guards in combat and the alarms go off again. They are able to disable the guards, but the element of surprise is now gone.

Wedding reception fun

- 25 Feb 2076 (Tuesday)
- 1800: Ruthless and OJ head to the arcane library to research the mysterious heart they have in their possession and discover it’s called “The Black Heart”. It is apparently a very old artifact with unknown powers and various magical groups seek it. They decide they need to get it to Ehran and contact him. He is definitely interested in it so asks they bring it safely and secretly to him when they are done retrieving the chain. The team then spends the next couple of days just relaxing and preparing for the wedding reception.

- 27 Feb 2076 (Thursday)
- 1900: The wedding reception begins in the dirigible, the Aman Iki. It is a wonderful affair, with music, dancing, food, speeches and all sorts of celebration! Around midnight, the gift presentation begins with the young couple receiving everything from silks and linens to goats and sheep. Near the end of the presentation, Oni makes an appearance carrying a chest of gems, jewels, silver, and gold. There is a slight disturbance related to his entrance, but OJ quickly calms the tribes and invites his friend to seat himself at the head table.

- 28 Feb 2076 (Friday)
- 0200: After Oni seats himself, Tapio of the Kizilkristal, comes in and shares that their gift (the chain) has been stolen. OJ quickly goes into action, asking Oni to search the dirigible and the team goes off to investigate. Oni returns and says there are seven individuals with devices on the catwalk between the passenger section and the balloons. The team goes charging up and engage the enemy. As they fight their way through the operatives, they discover the devices are actually vector thrust drones, which are launched through the very skin of the dirigible. The team creates a pincer with Oni on one end and Covon leading the way on the other. As Oni advances, the operatives launch their drones as quickly as possible and then leap from the catwalk. One of the operatives is brought down, one of the operatives gets caught in the dirigible machinery, but the rest execute the most wonderful dives from the catwalk and break through the dirigibles outer skin into the open air…where they deploy airfoils from their suits.
- The Kizilkristal interrogate them and discover they are operatives from the Yakashima corporation in Neo-Tokyo and the chain is headed there. Enraged, Prince Ostrander demands the Kizilkristal bring him the head of Yakashima’s CEO and immediately formulates a plan to retrieve the chain. The Kizilkristal dispatch a multi-tribe strike team as soon as they land (0700) and arrange transport for the Prince and his team.

Banshees and wedding...is there a link?

- 24 Feb 2076 (Monday)
- 0700: The team arrives in Karavan and conduct some research on the different tribes which comprise the moving city. They believe their primary focus should bee the Lhasso (the tribe which works on every armament and military piece of gear which comes into town). Before heading off, they ask Ruthless to summon a spirit to search for Stepan Martinez. Kayless also sends out his Fly Spies to see if they can find him using facial recognition. Unfortunately, neither method reveals Stepan’s presence. Kayless takes the lead with the Lhasso and they discover such an individual might go to the Asma to sell such an item.
- 0800: The team decides to head over to the Pjelykosts tribe since they are the magically inclined group. Though they do not find the chain there, they discover Stepan might have gone to the Asma to sell it. A Pjelykost gentleman approaches OJ and Ruthless and works on recruiting them into the tribe’s magical group. After much discussion and seeing the roving library, both agree to join the group the following night.
- 0900: Chang was asked to retrieve information concerning Stepan and reveals he took a job out of the city. It appears he conducted some sort of trade in the city before he left. She also tells them about this nice old lady who needed help carrying some stuff when the lady dropped her cigar box. The team makes their way back to the Banshee and discover an old heart inside the box. Ruthless assesses it, but it doesn’t really exist on the astral plane. Not knowing what it is, they store it in the Banshee, only after Kayless agrees to fetch some cigars for Sergei the rigger.
- 1000: The team gets to the Asma and discover Stepan was there, but the merchants could not afford his asking price: a long range vehicle with several gerry cans of fuel. They sent him to the Seljukok.
- 1030: The team heads over to the Seljukok and meet McGregor, a Scottish weapon smith who sells Kayless a wooden sword with which he may “train” Jian-Min. Unfortunately, Kayless discovers Jian-Min is far more athletic than he expected for a 9 year old.
- The beautiful Princess Yasamine approaches the most charismatic character she spots (OJ) and offers to gift him the information he seeks. Note she offered to gift it to him twice. OJ accepts and realizes only after getting close to the Sultana’s tent that she used the word “gift” twice. They enter the tent, where the Sultana is deep in planning a raid with her various war-chiefs, but sends them off as soon as Yasamine tells her of the great news. The Sultana immediately begins negotiating her dowry with OJ. Though OJ attempts to convince the Sultana that he and his bride need to reside in Seattle due to his other obligations, the Sultana is obstinate and insists the Prince, the future leader of the Seljukok, just lead from the front…or at least set up the wonderful corporate style training structure he described…that really sealed the deal for her. He was able to get her to agree to let him get married (tonight per her choice), but hold off on the reception for two nights, then grant him 1 year and 1 day before he must return to take his place. This translates to OJ returning on 27 Feb 2077 once he ties up what he needs to do!
- The Sultana reveals the chain was gifted to the Kizilkristal who own the two dirigibles which guide the city. The Kizilkristal are not allowed to get rid of any gifts for at least one year from which they received it. She agrees to set up a meet for Prince Levi Ostrander (aka OJ) and his team (now members of the tribe) tomorrow.
- 1800: Between the end of the negations and 1800 Kayless trades his services (automotive) to get the kids food and wedding clothing. The wedding takes place and there are huge celebrations throughout the entire city. You would have thought it was the wedding reception, but that is yet to come!

25 Feb 2076/Tuesday
- 1300: Levi…err…OJ leaves the nuptial tent and purchases some B&E gear for our 9 year old technomancer Jian-Min.
- 1500: The team goes to meet the Kizilkristal and enjoy a tour of the 3 deck dirigible. They also discover the Kizilkristal is hosting the wedding reception in the main ball room the next night and are very happy to treat the newlyweds to a night aboard in the honeymoon suite. OJ broaches the subject of the chain and is able to convince the Kizilkristal rep that they would like to have the chain as a wedding gift. He things it would not break any traditions and both tribes enter negotiations.
- 1700: They finish the dirigible tour and both Ruthless and OJ head over to the Pjelykost and start on the ritual to become members of the magical group. While those two are off doing that, Kayless calls Rorschach, Sequoia, and Jane Foster to share the wonderful news about OJs wedding. Jane seems really surprised and they discover they are all in Karavan right now. Jane meets OJ and Covon to hang out with them. Unfortunately, Jian-Min decides he’s going to sneak out of the Banshee and explore the town on this own…causing his adopted father no end of frustration….Kayless now realizes how difficult raising young, technomancer children can be. Jane takes pity on him and sends one of her spirits to escort the young child back to the Banshee.

Second Tigers, Drunken Monkeys, and Wendigos named Yuri

21 Feb 2076 (Friday)
- 2100: Syndell decides she’s going to hack into Bennett’s home node and try to find any files related to the compass. She successfully cuts through the node and discovers there was a theft at her mansion a few days ago. The team reviews the video footage and see three individuals with the same Chinese symbols on their outfits, which translates to “Second Tigers”. They decide to go to bed and check into this in the morning.

22 Feb 2076 (Saturday)
- 1300: Syndell wakes up and she and Kayless review the footage again together. She does some more matrix searches and finds they are a team of runners who usually hang out at the Drunken Monkey, which turns out to me a merc bar.
- 2200: The team heads down to the Drunken Monkey and find one of the Second Tigers hanging out there with about another five customers…a really light night at the bar. They get into a verbal altercation with Lung Ping, the Second Tiger leader and lure him outside where they capture him and take him to be questioned. After questioning him, they discover the Second Tiger’s decker must have swiped the chain while they tried to make their way out of the mansion. The decker, Stepan Martinez, departed for Karavan a couple days ago to look for work. This is typical of him. The team asks around and discover Karavan is a traveling city and it’s currently on the Afghan border. While conducting their legwork, they discover Sergei happens to be headed that way. They contact Sergei who agrees to take them along and will depart the next day at 1000.

23 Feb 2076 (Sunday)
- 1000: The runners meet with Sergei, load up and take off for what sounds like a long trip.
- 1200: Unfortunately, while trying to skirt the Maya Cloud around Tibet, a tendril of magic reaches out and causes the Banshee to crash land in the Himalayas. The team sends out spirit scouts and discover there is some sort of dual natured creature not far away. They set up a defensive position and both Sergei and Kayless begin working in shifts to get the Banshee up and running again. Needless to say, it’s exceptionally cold up there!
- 1700: The spirits come under attack from a large furry creature who is exceptionally stealthy. The team has one heck of a time trying to hit the creature, but Ruthless saves the day when she stunbolts it a couple of times, knocking it unconscious. They secure the creature and discover he is able to speak. Yuri the wendigo reveals he was extremely hungry and didn’t mean to scare the team. He begs for food and the team gives him rations. After the banshee is repaired, the team releases Yuri with some of their rations.

24 Feb 2076 (Monday)
- 0700: The banshee finally comes into a valley and the team finds Karavan. Sergei speaks with the various “aircraft controllers” and gets permission to land. As the banshee approaches, their commlinks chirp and they discover the local laws (the yassa) downloaded. They review them and Syndell reminds everyone to NOT accept gifts. The children begin asking various questions about the yassa’s meaning and Kayless does his best to explain it to them.

Let's play pirates or submariners...or something like that.

-19 Feb 2076 (Wednesday)
- 1800: The team contacts Beauregard and agree to meet him at 2000. Syndell sends a message to Shadow to let him know about the TM children…after she berates Kayless about suddenly becoming a father and not taking proper steps to protect the children.
- 2000: They meet with Beauregard and discover his fiancee (Tia Ying) is going to be forced to marry a local sheung fa (overboss) of her triad. He knows where she is to get married and that she is currently held at his minions on the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. He can provide assistance in penetrating the facility, but reveals the compass is not going to be delivered until 1500 the day of the gala and it will be delivered via the boat docks beneath the museum.
- 2200: Syndell starts conducting matrix searches on various topics and is able to reveal the rough time and probable route Tia Ying’s escorts will take with the boat. They contact a local smuggler, Sergei Vipin, to see if he has a submersible which they plan on using to ambush the enemy boat. He does and they meet him at the docks around 0800 the next morning.

- 20 Feb 2076 (Thursday)
- 0830: The team uses a multi-prong attack to disable the boat, emerge from the submersible and rescue Tia Ying in true pirate fashion…without the sabers, cannons, and swinging from ropes…okay, maybe not true pirate fashion.
- 0900: They get back to the hotel and start researching information Beauregard gave them about the current owner of the compass, Hsui Li Bennett. They discover she has a large mansion and outsourced security. They discover her security will escort the compass to the docks via boat and they decide to repeat their previous success.

- 21 Feb 2076 (Friday)
- 1330: They meet with Sergei, ride out to attack the escort team and…succeed just as easily as they did the first time. They contact Ehran who tells them he will meet them at the hotel this evening.
- 2000: They meet with Ehran and discovers the compass is the right one…but the chain attached to it is a fake. Without the chain, it’s “almost” useless. Ehran tells them they must go and get the chain. The team wants more money, so Ehran agrees to assist them with the various “issues” they face, e.g. helping OJ lose the bone spikes, helping Kayless find a Delta clinic, etc.

Geez, archeology is tough!

- 5 Jan 2076 (Sunday)
- The team emerges from the eastern pyramid and face some serious opposition on their way out. Fortunately for them, Covon and Syndell are still waiting for them and they escape. They make their way back to Sarajevo and catch a flight back to Seattle with a smuggler whom Jane arranged to meet them.
- The runners take some time to purchase some equipment, conduct some training, and all those fun things they do during downtime.

- 16 Feb 2076
- They receive a call from a Johnson asking they meet at a corner cafe late in the evening. When the team arrives, an elf in make up runs up to them, transfers 5000¥ to their accounts and runs off. To their dismay, a security team comes running around the corner and mistakes them for the elf for some reason. After a brief firefight, Ehran the Scribe shows up and offers them a ride in his limousine while they discuss business.
- He wants them to travel to Hong Kong to retrieve Shantaya’s Compass from the Hong Kong Museum of Ancient Artifacts. He offers them a private ballistic shuttle, hotel, and transportation in Hong Kong. They agree to go and complete the mission for 25,000¥. He also offers an option to get equipment for them instead of conducting a cash payout for any item they desire. King takes advantage of it and gets SWAT armor with a helmet and a better fake SIN. Ruthless requests a sword focus and a fake SIN. Payless and Covon both go for fake SINs.

- 18 Feb 2076/0015: The team gets to the airport, loads their gear and takes off for Hong Kong.

- 19 Feb 2076 (Wednesday)
- 1000/The group lands safely in Hong Kong and meet with Penelope Wang, who is an assistant to Ehran. They check their equipment and load up in a diplomatic flagged Nightsky. They are brought to a luxury hotel (The Peninsula Hotel), check in and decide to have lunch and contact Hacker A to do some research on the hotel and compass. They discover there is a big event to be held at the Museum of Ancient Art in a few days, at which the compass will be displayed. They ask Penelope to arrange a special visit to the museum so they can check it out.
- 1500/They arrive at the museum and receive a guided tour. During Kayless’ drone scouting, he encounters two children living in the air ducts. After some confusion, he discovers they are Technomancer orphans. Kayless arranges for the children to leave the museum and takes them back to the hotel, where he decides he’s going to adopt them. The children perform some actions, such as transferring funds from a pair of Atlantean Foundation Reps to Kayless’ commlink. They also order a lot of “food” (read: junk in front of it) and act as typical 11 and 9 year old orphan technomancer children. The team discovers the kids know Beauregard (who works at the museum) is having some problems and might be willing to help the runners in exchange for help.

Sneaking (v): depends on whom you ask

- 4 Jan 2076/1900: The team dresses up and heads off to the gala. They rub elbows with the various high ranking magical and educational leaders of the world. Kayless plants his drones in various areas and is finally able to get them into an air duct which also opens into the servants passages.
While planting their drones, they notice the Apep Consortium (who sent their buddy Georgiy Abolev) also planting cameras.
The team finds the “secret” entrance to the passages and manage to sneak into them, using both Ruthless and Horra as distractions. Once back there, both Kayless and OJ must work together to crack the various security devices protecting the doors. They succeed (barely) and discover a secret library/ritual area downstairs. They find the Phaistos disc and in true Indiana Jones fashion, swap it out for a book (of similar weight). They sneak out with the disc and hand it off to Jane, who reveals she must conduct a ritual to discover the true discs location…it appears this is a copy made with elements from the original disc.
Low and behold, the trail leads to an archeological dig in Bosnia, to be exact, the Bosanska Pirimida Sunca about 30 km north of Sarajevo. They do some research and discover it’s a wartorn land with UN forces attempting to enforce the peace. They also discover Aztechnology has been leading a dig at the pyramid site.
- 5 Jan 2076 (Sunday): The team arrives in Sarajevo, do some more legwork, get a Humvee and head off to the dig site. They set themselves up on the ridgeline near the northern pyramid and observe a veritable tent city/armed camp set up between four pyramids. Their best estimate is that there are 300+ individuals here. They also discover (to their dismay) that the area is an astral shallow, which means all magical effects are clearly visible to anybody.
They decide to leave Covon with Kayless’ sniper rifle on the ridge with Jane. The rest of them decide to sneak to the pyramid they need to enter, overcome the two guards, and enter the tunnels below. They discovered the tunnels thanks to Kayless’ drones.
They sneak upon the guards, but the only one able to achieve surprise is Ruthless who casts a Flamethrower spell unsuccessfully. Horra takes the initiative and opens up with her unsilenced machine pistol (oops…did I mention this is a valley?). Kayless is up next and decides he will follow suit and opens up with his unsilenced automatic shotgun (oops…did I mention this is a valley?). Ruthless, not wanting to be left out, draws her Ruger Super Warhawks and opens fire as well…do I need to mention it is also unsilenced? Do I need to mention…it’s a valley? OJ remains in stealth mode and attacks with his rapier. They finally take down the two guards and enter the pyramid.
The team descends about 200 meters and follow the tunnel to a large chamber. To their surprise, it’s filled with trees, water, plants, and birds…though the drone saw (and sees) nothing but a big black cavern. OJ shoves Kayless through the portal to the chamber and discovers it’s some sort of Astral Gateway…since Kayless’ body is now laying in a pile on the floor, but they can clearly see him standing in the idyllic area. They all enter and the same thing happens to their bodies.
They meander through and see the Phaistos disc upon a pedestal which is on a dais. There is a male and female elf standing to either side of it. After an odd conversation about creators, anguished, and other stuff, they tell the elves of the party that one of them must offer to become an anguished in order to receive the disc. There’s is much debate and OJ finally agrees. He immediately falls to the ground in pain and spikes erupt from his skin…from this entire body. They destroy his clothes and armor and he discovers they do the same when he returns to his body.
With the true Phaistos disc in hand, the idyllic area disappears and they decided to head out the eastern passage, in the general direction of their waiting humvee and Covon.